A high-level block diagram of a network architecture, generally indicated by reference numeral 100, supporting wireless Internet, e.g. World Wide Web (WWW), services is depicted in FIG. 1. A wireless terminal 102, e.g. a wireless application protocol-enabled telephone, connects to a gateway 104, e.g., a WAP gateway conforming to the WAP standard, over a wireless connection 106, e.g. a radio frequency connection such as a digital or analog cellular connection, using a wireless connection protocol.
A wireless connection protocol, known as the wireless application protocol (WAP), specified by the WAP Forum Ltd. is the most popular standard defining the provision of Internet communications and advanced telephony services to wireless systems, e.g., phones, pagers, personal digital assistants, and other terminals. The WAP specification is available from the WAP Forum at www.wapforum.org.
Gateway 104, a computer system as is known in the art, receives requests from terminals, tracks terminal connections, and provides responses to terminals. The amount of time terminal 102 is connected to gateway 104 is defined as the connect time. Gateway 104 connects to a server 108, e.g. a web server, over a fixed connection 110, e.g. a telephone line, an Ethernet connection, an optical or fiber-optic connection, a satellite-based connection, or a microwave-based connection, using standard network protocols, e.g. TCP/IP. Server 108, a computer system as is known in the art, receives and responds to requests from gateway 104.
It is to be understood that multiple terminals, gateways, servers, and wireless and fixed connections are possible; however, for simplification purposes only a single instance of each is described.
Typically, a user using terminal 102 travels among locations and corresponding gateways, e.g. traveling from home to office a terminal can connect and disconnect with multiple gateways. Connection of the terminal 102 to gateway 104 enables a user to access the Internet, and more specifically the World Wide Web (WWW), using WAP capabilities of terminal 102. For simplicity of description, WWW service access will be used as a non-limiting example.
After a WAP terminal, i.e. terminal 102, establishes a wireless connection with gateway 104 and responsive to user manipulation of terminal 102, terminal 102 transmits a request, e.g. a WAP version of an HTTP request, to gateway 104 which in turn formats the WAP request as an HTTP request and transmits the HTTP request to a web server, i.e. server 108. In response to receiving an HTTP request, server 108 transmits an HTTP response to gateway 104 which in turn formats the HTTP response as a WAP response and transmits the WAP response to terminal 102.
Because WAP terminals differ from desktop and/or laptop computer systems, e.g. smaller screen size, lower resolution, and less processing capabilities, the protocol specified by WAP for requests and responses differs from the protocol specified by HTTP. For example, WAP requests and responses are shorter in length, less complex, and include minimal or no graphics in comparison to HTTP request and responses.
Additionally, the cost of connect time for a terminal 102 connecting to gateway 104 over wireless connection 106 is greater than the cost of connect time from gateway 104 to web server 108 over fixed connection 110. Because of the costly nature of the wireless connection 106, users of terminal 102 desire to minimize the amount of connect time used. Further impacting the cost of using terminal 102 to access the Internet, the response time for web server 108 to respond to a request from gateway 104 is unreliable. That is, there is no guarantee whether or how long web server 108 will take to respond to requests from gateway 104. Thus, there is a need in the art to reduce the cost of network access from wireless devices. Further, there is a need in the art to reduce the connect time for wireless devices accessing network resources.